Somethingvery strange happened yesterday. I did a couple of flights in the morning and charged my batteries for another flight in the afternoon (have 2 x batteries).

I have a GoPro hero 4 Black edition attached to the Zenmuse H3-3D Gimbal. I do what I always do, pre-flight checks, compass calibration, wait for my satellite fix. All was good. I took off to about 50m high and hovered. I did a few small movements left and right, busy testing the hero 4 photo and video capabilities (still new camera).
I slowly flew away from where I was standing, about 50 -60m away and maintaining the 50m altitude.
All of a sudden the Phantom 2 just flew away from me, the swooped to one side and dropped out of the sky and went full speed towards the ground, I immediately activated "Fail Safe Mode". Nothing happened, it just went down........ it crashed on the roof of a house a block away from where I live.

Found the battery on the roof (the battery led's still indicate 90 - 100% power), the Phantom in the garden, the Zenmuse Gimbal broken and bent on the drive way, the GoPro wrecked. The Phantom blades are broken, the motors are stuck due to bent "arms" . It took a serious hit.

So now the GoPro does not work at all, I inserted the SD card it into my PC to seethe video of the incident. The video shows: me taking off, up to about 50m altitude, hovered, then my little movements, all still good. Then I flew in a Southerly direction for roughly 50 - 60m, all still good on video. Then Video just STOP! Like the Gopro has been switched off..........all still at 50m altitude.......

The Gopro and Phantom battery was charged to 100% before the flight, this all happened within 1 minute from take-off.

I fly this Phantom. I am very familiar with the procedures of calibration,satellite fix and pre-flight checks. Oh and the Phantom is in Phantom Mode NOT Naza.

I am a ROV (Remote Operated Vehicle) Pilot Offshore in Oil and Gas. I am very familiar with flying and robotics.
The Firmware on the Phantom and Zenmuse was up to date.


Any ideas as to what could have happened?


I'm taking this up with DJI Support!

Bad news! again a great case for a black box feedback of some sort.  I for one would really like to know what is going om with these flyaways-- sure, some are pilot error but others appear not to be.  If we could speak with data rather than opinion, this advanced piece of technology could be made even better.

Rod

Definitely not good news! This is not a flyaway, but a loss of power and resulting crash. There is no reason it should lose power in that fashion if the battery is almost fully charged.

You didn't mention if you have a FPV system and what, if any, modifications you have done to the Phantom.
I don't think any mode would have helped since it appears to be a 100% loss of power.

It's strange that the GoPro lost power when the copter did. Aren't those separate systems? (I've got a Vision+ so I'm not familiar with the setup).

Might have been a loose battery. I had one fall out after a small crash on my PV2+v.3 recently, not due to loss of power though

Did you have the Gopro wireless on? If so, that could have interfered with the Phantom 2 radio, since they are using the same frequency.

Were you running the new problematic version of the App?

My brand new Phantom 2 did the same thing, almost.  Everything was good to go on takeoff, pre flight performed, everything charged and then it just tumbled out of the sky, twice.  First time I as about 6 feet off the ground, second time about 20 feet about 5 minutes after the first crash.  I had been training with Real Flight 7.5 prior to flying the real deal.  Phantom has less than 8 hours of flight time.  First, I sent the Gimbal back in because it never worked after I got it.  I had removed the Gimbal until I had gained enough experience flying.  But mine was not a total power failure, the Phantom went totally haywire and tumbled in every direction imaginable before hitting the ground.  Waiting to hear back from Intelligent UAS in Maryland as to what the hell caused a brand new, properly flown and prepped Phantom to go totally haywire.  I believe now that there was/is nothing wrong with the Gimbal, it was just the indication of a much larger problem within the Phantoms controllers, wiring and such.  Assistant software after last crash showed a locked screen on IMU calibration.

Hi all, Gopro had its own battery inside.  But when I power the Quad on and off the Gopro goes on and off, so me just pressing the Quad's battery on and off turns the Gopro on and off.

Never used the wireless on the Gopro, been reading Forums and Youtube for manny months before I bought this Quad 2 weeks ago.
Knew about the wifi which causes interference.

No FPV system, stock standard Phantom 2 with Zenmuse H3-3D and GoPro Hero 4 Black Edition.  

Battery was fully charged before flight and battery was 100% clipped in, I check these before every flight......Like I said, I am a ROV pilot, I am very switched on with my pre and post flight checks!  I give the battery a little pull when inserted to double check.

Were you running the new problematic version of the App?  No Apps, nothing, standard Phantom 2, Zenmuse H3-3D, GoPro Hero 4 with its own battery inside

http://youtu.be/NgR39dMFrhI
This is the video I got from the SD card, the GoPro is dead.  Video stopped exactly when I lost control........

Found it 117m from my house

Sorry to hear about the crash,
Watched that video several times,
Maybe just an optical illusion but it looked as one of the propos was not spinning up to speed right before take off.
It obviously took off but any chance one of the motors were weak, phantom tried to compensate, motor finally died and down she went.

May be mistaken but I seem to hear the motors/props speeding up and slowing down (very quickly) as if there is something going on.

Still no word from DJI or dealer who I bought it from. It's only 2 weeks old

DJI support is just not happening......

I had a tricky situation with my brand new Phantom: after I installed, charged, connected Zenmuse, etc... I switched battery on (not the engines) and it kept beeping. As it was past midnight, I did not try to fly it anymore.
So next morning switched on the battery and beeping was gone - so I did first test flight, but it acted not really stable so I put it back on the ground and turned off the engines when immediately beeping started again. When trying to switch the engines on I saw one was not working.
I took it back to the store and they discovered the wire connected to the speed control of the malfunctioning engine was not connected thoroughly. They checked all and afterwards it worked/flew flawlessly.
As it seems your propellers are not working at same speed, it might be a different wire (like overall power connected to battery was already loose) and because of vibrations totally shutdown the device in mid flight.
Just a thought...

JayRune4P Posted at 2015-2-4 20:22
I had a tricky situation with my brand new Phantom: after I installed, charged, connected Zenmuse, e ...

Thanks, I'm still struggling to get some sort of assistBColorImageLinkQuoteCodeance from the Dealer

Were you flying in GPS mode?  It seemed that it was moving/fishing around in the sky from the very beginning which made me wonder if you were in ATTI on your S1 switch.  It goes up...drifts left...drifts right...etc.

Just a thought.  If it wasn't in GPS mode, you have a lot more flying to do and the Phantom is more heavily influenced by the elements (wind, momentum, etc.) and won't stay in place if you let go of the controls, etc.  

Really sorry about your crash...totally frustrating!

Was for sure in GPS mode, I checked when I lost control.........

But yes, on the Video it does fish around......

The video is downloaded in segments onto the SD card so if the camera is switched off or damaged it may be that the last segment of  footage of several seconds is not added to the card, so the fact that it doesnt show the accident doesnt necessarily mean the Gopro switched off before impact but was more likely damaged before the last segment loaded. DJI have significantly improved the shielding of the GPS module, GPS cable and Compass cable on the V3.0, perhaps they know something about the fly aways we dont.

You can follow my Post in PhantomPilots.com

http://www.phantompilots.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=34525

What firmware was the phantom flying with.

Pure guess but if a vibration caused a momentary battery disconnect, that could explain a lot of these "fell from the sky" problems. Did the batteries feel tight in the Phantom? I am interested in the battery connection issue. The DJI drones have a very easy (if tight) battery insertion. You don't need to connect a wire. On the other hand most other drones require you to plug in a wire connector to the battery before inserting it (like the Parrot Bebop for example). This is a bit of a pain to do but it has the major benefit that the connection is mostly immune to vibration causing momentary loss of power.

@grangerfx,

I don't know about everyone else's P2 but mine has very tight battery fit.  I have to exert a lot of force to get them out.  I don't see how mine would vibrate out unless it was not inserted all the way.  I have seen a couple times where it can be inserted and looks fine from the top of the battery but the bottom not seated completely with a small gap.

I'm overseas at the moment, but I installed the very latest Firmware at that time around the 26,27 or 28th January 2015

My batteries are TIGHT, hard to get out.

I'm overseas at the moment, but I installed the very latest Firmware at that time around the 26,27 or 28th January 2015

My batteries are TIGHT, hard to get out.

peyperj.yahoo Posted at 2015-2-6 10:54
I'm overseas at the moment, but I installed the very latest Firmware at that time around the 26,27 o ...

Yup the batts can be a PITA to remove . . . or at least they were untill I watched this:

So simple you will kick yourself

peyperj.yahoo Posted at 2015-2-6 10:54
I'm overseas at the moment, but I installed the very latest Firmware at that time around the 26,27 o ...

If it took a firmware update around those dates. It would most likely have been the now removed 3.10 update, that has caused havoc amongst owners.

If it is 3.10 you may want to have a serious conversation with DJI.

I thought na5n reported that when an ESC goes to dead short, the controller shuts down main power.

bjr981s Posted at 2015-2-6 19:42
If it took a firmware update around those dates. It would most likely have been the now removed 3. ...

I have been trying and trying to phone DJI, emails, the Dealer here in South Africa where I bought it.  No one reply or answer their phones........its been a week

Still no support, nothing, not answering my email, phone call..... Dealer ignore me......

peyperj.yahoo Posted at 2015-2-10 14:33
Still no support, nothing, not answering my email, phone call..... Dealer ignore me......

It would be nice of we had moderators that could merge highlight threads etc. For DJIs attention.

There is another thread I read an hour ago where a member posted the same thing happening to his Hero equipped phantom.

As he recovered the Phantom by using Failsafe he posted the video. That showed the Phantom tumble from the Sky, correct itself and it then flew out to sea. It was working OK on failsafe but once it got close to him he took control again and the some thing happened. A tumble and then a flyaway.

Switching it to Failsafe and allowing the Phantom to Auto-land it was OK.

This is now looking like another consistent problem.

Cheers

Dji still ignore me, the Dealer as well.....